“People are beginning to use [Facebook] more than phones, more than text messages, more than instant messaging, even more than talking in person. It speeds things up. People are prone to define where they are so they can show other people [online].”
—Dave Berkman, a mental health counselor at the University of Wisconsin, who finds that some students are compelled to define themselves on a Facebook page in terms of their relationship status and then compulsively update their status over and over again
source: Reuters, December 4

“When innocent people are killed in a religious facility or place of worship, we must voice a collective sense of outrage.”
—Bill Ritter Jr., governor of Colorado, after a gunman and four victims were killed and four others injured in two separate shootings at a church and a missionary training center on December 9
source: Time, December 10

“I do not define my candidacy by my religion. A person should not be elected because of his faith, nor should he be rejected because of his faith. Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions. Their authority is theirs, within the province of church affairs, and it ends where the affairs of the nation begin. If I am fortunate to become your president, I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause and no one interest. A president must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States.”
—Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, in speech that dealt with concerns over his Mormon beliefs
source: AP, December 6

“Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?”
—Republican presidential candidate and conservative Christian, Mike Huckabee, in reference to rival Mitt Romney, in an article stated for the Sunday, December 16 issue of The New York Times Magazine
source: AP, December 11

“I said, I would never try...to somehow pick out some point of your faith and make it an issue, and I wouldn’t. I’ve stayed away from talking about Mitt Romney’s faith. I told him face-to-face, I said I don’t think your being a Mormon ought to make you more or less qualified for being a president.”
—Huckabee outlining what he said in his personal apology to Mitt Romney
source: CNN.com, December 12

“Huckabee is…full-blown nuts, a Christian goofball of the highest order. He believes the Earth may be only 6,000 years old, angrily rejects the evidence that human beings evolved from ‘primates’ and thinks America wouldn’t need so much Mexican labor if we allowed every aborted ¬fetus to grow up and enter the workforce.”
—Rolling Stone political writer Matt Taibbi’s critique of the former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister
Source: Rolling Stone, November 14

“Your makeup and your decision to forgo the headscarf will bring you death.”
—Graffiti in Basra, Iraq, where religious vigilantes have killed 40 women in the past year for “violating Islamic teachings” by how they dress
source: Time, December 10

“I’m a cultural Christian in the same way many of my friends call themselves cultural Jews or cultural Muslims. So, yes, I like singing carols along with everybody else. I’m not one of those who wants to purge our society of our Christian history. If there’s any threat [of] these sorts of things, I think you will find it comes from rival religions and not from atheists.”
—Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and a world-renowned scientist and atheist, commenting during a BBC talk show
source: BBC News, December 10

“Sometimes it was affected for the good. Cocaine used to make you come out with these incredible ideas. We would have a line and go, ‘Yeah, that is a great song.’ I can only think of the good items that came out of it, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody starting out.”
—Ron Wood, lead guitarist for the Rolling Stones, on how his creativity was affected by his drug use
Source: Time, October 24

“I think knowing the Scriptures helped. I think I could debate with them. I hope they had appreciated that, and they knew I had respect for their beliefs. Even if I wasn’t the best example of how to live your life, they treated me with respect. I’m nervous of zealotism, even though I have to admit I’m a zealot for these issues of extreme poverty.”
—U2 singer Bono on his conversations with conservative legislators on Capitol Hill about forgiving the debt of developing nations and fighting poverty
source: The Washington Post, November 24

“What I worry about is this generation of young people thinking they don’t have to be a part of the political system.”
—Tom Brokaw, former NBC Nightly News anchor, who’s working on a book on the 1960s
source: Time, December 11